In a special called meeting held Thursday evening, the Cadiz City Council voted 3–1 to terminate Freedom Waste’s contract for waste collection in the city by March 2, with Cadiz City Councilman Bob Noel providing the sole “no” vote.

In a letter to Cadiz City Attorney Allen Wilson from Feb. 5, H. Douglas Willen, an attorney for Freedom Waste, said that Freedom Waste’s contract was automatically renewed for another three-year term from March 2 of this year to March 2, 2013.

Willen states in the letter that although Cadiz City Clerk Lisa Rogers sent a letter attempting to terminate the contract on Dec. 17 last year, the city gave less than the 90-day notice as required in the contract, and the contract was automatically renewed.

A contract with Waste Management dated March 1998 states that the three-year contract will automatically extent for additional three-year terms unless one party, 90 days or more before the contract is set to expire, informs the other that it wants to terminate the contact, Willen argued in the letter.

In the letter from Rogers to Joe Buchanan of Freedom Waste written on Dec. 17, Rogers stated it was her understanding that the contract would begin anew on March 21, 2010.

Cadiz Mayor Lyn Bailey said at the meeting that no complaints about the bidding process were leveled until after the city council accepted a bid from Madisonville Disposal at their last meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 2.

Cadiz City Attorney Allen Wilson said, in a letter to the mayor on Monday, Feb. 8, that the council needed to act “to avoid a potential claim against the City by Madisonville Disposal.”

However, Wilson wrote, in a letter to the mayor the next day, that he had spoken with Brett Chappel and Brian Stallins of Madisonville Disposal, who he said told him they would cancel much of what their company had ordered.

Bailey said the city council will stand by their decision, although he added that it was possible that Freedom Waste will still take legal action against the city.

Noel said he voted against it because he was unsure of the dates involved. Also present were Rogers, Cadiz Public Works Director Kerry Fowler and Cadiz City Councilmen Todd King, Frankie Phillips and Manuel Brown.

No representatives of, or attorneys for, Freedom Waste were present at the meeting, which lasted only a few minutes. Buchanan declined to make a public comment on the issue and directed all questions to H. Douglas Willen, the attorney for Freedom Waste.

Willen was not available for comment at press time, and Stallins and Chappell were also unavailable for comment.